"It's a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it's
really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It
is thinly veiled social Darwinism. It is antithetical to our
entire history as a land of opportunity. ... It is a prescription
for decline."

He acknowledged that Republicans want deep budget cuts because of
titanic deficits in the future, but responded this way: "That
argument might have a shred of credibility, if it were not also
for them spending 4.6 trillion dollars on lower tax rates."

"Romney called Ryan budget 'marvelous,'" Obama said, "a word you
don't often hear to describe a budget. It's a word you don't
often hear generally."

This really seems like the campaign Obama wants to run, a
campaign in which he casts himself as the defender of the
middle-class, and the expanded role of government in education,
health, and safety. For Obama's campaign, Romney is the defender
of wealth and privilege, who will gut all the government programs
that middle-class Americans have depended on.

During a question and answer period, Obama even took a shot at
the GOP, saying that it has moved so far to the right that Ronald
Reagan "couldn't get through the Republican primary" today.

We really got a preview of the 2012 Obama campaign today.

For his part, Paul Ryan, returned fire in
a statement, blasting Obama for ducking the issue of
deficits:

History will not be kind to a President who, when it came time to
confront our generation’s defining challenge, chose to duck and
run. The President refuses to take responsibility for the economy
and refuses to offer a credible plan to address the most
predictable economic crisis in our history. Instead, he has
chosen tired and cynical political attacks as he focuses on his
own re-election.